Trump cabinet and Korea

John Merill

Uncertainty remains over what President-elect Donald Trump’s policy on Korea will be in his second term. Will he pull U.S. troops out of Korea unless Seoul coughs up billions of dollars annually to pay for them? Will he resume negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while bypassing Seoul? Or will he decide to maintain strong security ties with Korea as part of an anti-China strategy?

Contrasting clues can be found in his selection of nominees for key national posts. Trump has named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Rep. Mike Waltz from Florida as national security adviser. Both men represent the internationalist wing of the Republican Party and are regarded as strong China hawks and supporters of a defense buildup.

Rubio has dealt with Korean issues as a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has been a harsh critic of North Korea, once calling Kim a “lunatic.” He has lobbied for tougher sanctions on Pyongyang and has sought to raise pressure on its human rights record. Rubio also argued that Washington needs to maintain its defense commitment with Seoul.

Waltz, a Green Beret veteran with several tours in the Middle East and Africa, shares Rubio’s hard-line China stance. He appears likely to endorse a hard line on North Korea as part of a China containment strategy.

But he has also modified some of his views to align with Trump, such as expressing doubts about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine and NATO. Some analysts believe that Waltz would likely back a Trump push for direct engagement with Pyongyang, given his loyalty to the president-elect. This would also reflect his view that Iran, not North Korea, poses the most pressing threat to the U.S.

The deputy national security adviser will be Alex Wong, who was a key player in the State Department on North Korea policy in the first Trump term, including helping arrange Trump’s summit in Singapore with Kim.

John Ratcliffe, Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, would also seem amenable to resume U.S. talks with North Korea based on his past statements.

While he has described North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as “concerning,” he has also suggested that Pyongyang views the weapons as a deterrent and a means to raise its international status. He has stated that North Korea might be willing to make concessions on its nuclear and missile program in return for sanctions relief and some form of security guarantees.

Two proposed nominees who would more strongly back an engagement policy with North Korea are Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

Both are aligned with the isolationist wing of the Republican Party and have criticized Washington’s “neocons” whom they blame for leading the U.S. into “endless wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hegseth’s views on North Korea have shifted with those of Trump over the years. In 2017, when Trump was warning of “fire and fury” against Pyongyang, Hegseth, as a Fox News host, called for “decisive” military action to end its nuclear activity.

But when Trump began his diplomatic effort with Kim in 2018, Hegseth supported a normalization of ties between Washington and Pyongyang. He has since then appeared to continue supporting Trump’s diplomatic approach as long as it succeeds in reducing North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

Another hint of where Trump might be headed is his selection of Elbridge Colby as undersecretary of defense for policy, a key Pentagon post. He is a China hawk who believes that U.S. troops stationed in Korea should focus more on countering threats from China while Seoul should assume more responsibility for its own defense, including possibly developing a nuclear weapon.

Gabbard has also been a critic of the American military-industrial complex and was an early supporter of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Party primary because she shared his noninterventionist views on foreign policy.

Both Hegseth and Gabbard may have a difficult time being approved by the Senate, but even if they are rejected, this is unlikely to deter Trump if he wants to reengage with Kim.

Trump continues to refer favorably to Kim, saying recently that he “got along well” with him and that he was “the only one to have properly dealt” with the North Korean leader.

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law bid and the resulting political turmoil could also encourage Trump to bypass Seoul and engage directly with Pyongyang on a nuclear deal.

Despite Kim’s New Year’s message that Pyongyang will adopt its “toughest” anti-U.S. policy yet, that could just be an opening gambit to push Trump to hold more face-to-face talks.

John Merrill (jmerrill05@gmail.com) is a visiting scholar at the Institute of Korean Studies at George Washington University.